Impact of vitamin D depletion during development on CC051 mice

Rodent models provide an ideal and reproducible environment to study vitamin D deficiency (VDD) during pregnancy. Our lab performed a series of reciprocal crosses with several strains of Collaborative Cross (CC) inbred mice to access the effects of developmental vitamin D deficiency (DVD) on the phenotypic outcomes, including adiposity, of the offspring. Using the CC mice allowed us to maximize the robustness of phenotypic responses to vitamin D deficiency. We identified a reciprocal cross, CC051 x CC041, that had disparate reactions to VDD during their development. The CC051 x CC041 offspring that were fed a low vitamin D (LVD) diet had more than two times as much fat mass as their control counterparts, while there was no significant difference in fat mass between the CC041 x CC051 mice on control and LVD diets. This promising data prompted us to investigate if we could see similar or stronger results in a CC051 x CC051 homozygous cross.Master of Scienc